Abstract:Achieving carbon neutrality has become a national strategy for China. Under this goal, China’s energy supply and demand structure will undergo profound changes. As a clean and efficient low-carbon fossil energy source, natural gas plays an essential role in the transition of energy consumption from high to low carbon. It is practical and worthwhile to analyze and study the contributions of natural gas to realize China’s carbon neutral goal and its perspective in the industry. In this work, the investigation of the carbon neutral concept and the implementation methods was conducted first. According to the data from research institutions, enterprises, and scholars, the prospects of China’s natural gas industry were summarized. Three scenarios were constructed based on the judgment of China’s economic development: baseline scenario, low-speed scenario, and high-speed scenario. Through the fixed base energy consumption elasticity coefficient method, the total primary energy, and natural gas consumption in the period of China’s carbon target were predicted. This study also summarizes the industry's development prospects from the supply and demand aspects of natural gas in China. The suggestions for the coupled development of natural gas and other green energy in the carbon neutral era were also made. It is found that: 1) Due to the cleanness and convenience, the consumption and proportion of natural gas in the energy system should be rapidly increased to replace coal, and it should be jointly constructed with renewable energy. 2) Based on the assumptions of the existing research, it is estimated that the total primary energy consumption of China in 2030 is 55.14×10⁸ t~60.78×10⁸ t (ton standard coal), and the natural gas consumption is 5 449×10⁸ m³~6 006×10⁸ m³; The total primary energy consumption in 2060 is 53.410⁸ t~68.20×10⁸ t, and the natural gas consumption is expected to reach 5 280×10⁸ m³~6 740×10⁸ m³, thus the natural gas industry has huge development potential. Based on these findings, the suggestions are put forward for developing China’s natural gas industry: 1) While increasing the exploration and development of conventional natural gas at the supply side, China should actively promote the development of unconventional natural gas such as shale gas, coalbed methane, and natural gas hydrate. Moreover, boosting trade in LNG and pipeline gas to consolidate energy supply security; Gas-fired power generation and industrial heat will become the main ways of using natural gas on the consumer side. Especially in the new power system with new energy as the main source, gas power will take advantage of rapid response to bear the role of power system peak regulation and frequency regulation; The industrial sector needs to promote the replacement of coal with gas proactively, particularly in energy-intensive industries; 2) Combined with the current situation of the renewable energy industry, the roadmap of deep coupling development of the natural gas industry and green renewable energy systems such as wind, solar, and hydrogen is proposed from the three aspects: production, storage and transportation, and utilization, respectively. Firstly, increasing electric equipment in natural gas development process and developing CO₂-enhanced shale gas extraction, CCUS or other negative emission technologies aggressively; Giving priority to infrastructure such as natural gas pipeline networks and underground gas storage, particularly emergency peak-shaving capacity construction to realize the deep integration of technologies such as power-to-gas, hydrogen storage, and carbon storage; Additionally, combined with the new power systems, through digital and intelligent technology to transform the management and control mode, realizing the intelligentization of natural gas storage, transportation and consumption, promoting the high-quality coordinated development of natural gas and new energy to ensure the realization of the “Dual Carbon” goals.